Category Archives: Australia

A group of athletes from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children are headed to the Gold Coast of Australia to compete in the 17th World Transplant Games with TeamCanada.

Each one of the 25 members of the team have received a heart, lung, liver or kidney transplant. The athletes have been training for months to take part in the games held August 22 to August 30. Sick Kids reports:

“One of the main goals of our organ transplantation program is to provide a better quality of life and as normal a childhood as possible,” said Mary Jo Haddad, President and CEO of SickKids. “Our patients’ participation in the World Transplant Games is a testament not only to the quality of care they have received but also to their own and their families’ resolve. It is their determination, spirit and enthusiasm that we are celebrating today.”

The children that left for the Gold Coast have prepared for several months in an exercise training program with SickKids physiotherapists. This is the second time the team has appeared at the World Transplant Games. In 2007 the 17 heart transplant patients that attended brought Canada back 38 medals from Bangkok, Thailand. The team was the only delegation from Canada to send a team to the Games at that time. This year’s team all receive their treatments at SickKids. The team is comprised of members from eight to 18 years of age. Sick Kids quotes Dr. Anne Dipchand:

“At the 2007 Games, Team SickKids athletes had the opportunity to meet and interact with transplant recipients of all ages and organs,” said Dr. Anne Dipchand, Associate Director of the SickKids Transplant Centre, Head of the SickKids Heart Transplant Program and General Manager of Team SickKids. “One of the greatest highlights for both the parents and the kids was to see people who had received organ transplants as kids, who have grown up into adults leading healthy, successful and fulfilling lives.”

Returning champ Jessica Dorcich, 10, enjoys the chance to meet with other heart transplant patients just like her.

“Even though we have all had different experiences, it is nice to know that we have this chance to come together and compete and show the world what we can do,” she said.

The Daily Observer says that more than 1,500 people from 60 countries will be Down Under competing in the Games this year.

Why was a live shark left outside an office in Canberra? That’s a question the police would like to have answered as they investigate the Port Jackson shark left in front of a newspaper office.
The shark was still alive when the police got to the scene Thursday. The juvenile Port Jackson shark was about 2 feet long. Once the authorities poured some water on it the animal kicked around for a bit.

Reuters reports:

“I walked over to McDonalds and borrowed a bucket off them and filled it up with water, and we picked the shark up and put it inside it and then drove it down to the breakwater and released it back into the water,” he said.

Perhaps one of the journalists in the office had upset a source? The police are clueless as to the animal’s arrival at The Standard’s door.

Chief of staff Glen Bernoth is equally confused as to why the shark was there. He learned of the surprise guest in a middle-of-the-night call from a friend who had heard about it on his police scanner.

Strait Times reports:

‘Naturally, I assumed it was like some sort of prank or something, but I’d been asleep for a couple hours,’ Mr Bernoth said with a laugh on Thursday.

The shark has been taken back to the water and freed. Kindhearted police had used a borrowed bucket from the McDonald’s next door to put the animal in for it’s ride home to the sea.

ABC reports:

“If we can locate the person that’s dumped it, then they’ll be charged with cruelty to animals,” he said.

Constable Dwyer says he is at a loss as to why the shark was left at the town’s newspaper.

“They had no ideas of any person that wished them any harm or wished to send them any type of message, so we’re a little dumbfounded at this stage,” he said.